How can you possibly RP in Skyrim? : V - Skyrim

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:21 pm

lol I find it hilarious how some people will defend the game to the death and refuse to acknowledge its downsides. It was the same way with DA2 which is about 1000x more surprising. Still I find it surprising that game developers often handle criticism much better than ~~fanb…~~ certain players. Fact is the game refuses to respond to your actions in anyway which is weird considering how Beth made FO3 and had FONV to learn from. I guess they were a little afraid of going into that direction because of a certain group of people who would come out of the woodwork day one and say how Skyrim is just like FONV with swords.

Speaking of FONV is Obsidian still considering trying to get fans to bankroll a project?

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 6:32 pm

Imagination is key, the other games didn't allow for good RP without using imagination either, nor did they really have more dialogue choices, just more topics

One thing Oblivion and Morrowind got right though: NPCs should NOT say their unique line
upon you brushing past, they should just say "Hello there" "What is it?" etc. (and preferably with more conditions like stare for 5 seconds within 3 feet of the NPC) and say their line upon being activated, that way they don't spam you and the lines aren't as irritating.

What it did get right is reducing the amount nobodies say. Random people on streets do NOT want to talk to you.

"Do you get to the cloud district very often, oh what am I saying, of course not."

R.I.P. Nazeem

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:34 pm

I roleplay with my imagination if I did not I would jot be playing this game right now.

In saying that, the game needs to recognize you for your accomplishments or fear you for you evil deeds. There needs to be a reputation system in places that ranks you accredited to the actions you perform within the world. There should also be a faction based system as well you should he punished and expelled from your respective guild if you screw them over.

It would jot hurt either to have more variety in the NPC dialogue. That is always a plus instead of "someone stoke your sweetroll" every five minutes. This is where's text based dialogue I thought was better it was easier to do and you could have a lot more interaction, hut the industry has moved away from that.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:10 pm

Imagine harder.

Good luck with that.

Gamers have never been known for approaching games with a sense of creativity, only repetition and predictability. Unfortunately, games like Skyrim are lost on most "gamers", if you can call them that.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:52 am

I opened up CK to see what's going on.

Check this:
http://i.imgur.com/Ndo7n.png

I assume MG is "mages guild" aka College questline. The conditions say: if MG01(assuming first quest of College) is NOT(0) running OR if it is NOT(0) already finished(which cumulatively means you had no contact with College yet): don't run the dialog.

Yet, it still runs apparently. So either the getquestcompleted function is bugged or the whole conditions system. Maybe it takes only the first condition into account.

There is also "hours until reset" which reads "0.50". I would put 100 there at least or just check the "say once" box. :tongue:

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:57 pm

I have some genuine questions and you seem like you might know; so... How many lines of dialogue could actually be given to all the NPCs? There has to be some kind of limit but again, I freely admit to not knowing what I'm talking about on this one. Also, is it possible that dialogue was sacrificed in order to include something(s) that are more important to the game?

the game is like 4.7 GB total...bluerays are 50 GB (screw xbox), they had room they just wanted to profit in the fourth quarter of 2011.

If you have limited availability for dialogue, the solution is to use more generic dialogue that isn't context-specific. When I ask "What do you have for sale?" Instead of replying "I had you figured for a mage" say "Anything a mage would need."

Phrases like "If you have the aptitude, you should join the College in Winterhold" should be used as one-time lines or split into two different lines: If you haven't joined, use the first line, if you have joined say "Learned anything new at the College?"

exsactly. it wouldnt have been hard, but they needed more time for textures and lighting effects...

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:02 pm

I agree completely. Even with all the AI advances in the series, we seem to have the same dialogue "place holders" waiting about that signifies the series since day one. Although I must admit (reluctantly) that at least Morrowind had more interesting characters and better written dialogue, regardless of the static and often useless AI.

If anyone ever seen the movie Mom and dad saved the world starring Jon Lovitz you can clearly see that Skyrim reminds me a lot like the planet Spengo where theirs nothing but complete idiots living there.

Ironically enough Planet Spengo is ruled by Emperor Todd. :ermm:

Remember that scene from the movie with the, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCeD2gF9jUo Exactly how your followers still behave.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:13 pm

I opened up CK to see what's going on.

Check this:
http://i.imgur.com/Ndo7n.png

I assume MG is "mages guild" aka College questline. The conditions say: if MG01(assuming first quest of College) is NOT(0) running OR if it is NOT(0) already finished(which cumulatively means you had no contact with College yet): don't run the dialog.

Yet, it still runs apparently. So either the getquestcompleted function is bugged or the whole conditions system. Maybe it takes only the first condition into account.

There is also "hours until reset" which reads "0.50". I would put 100 there at least or just check the "say once" box. :tongue:

What's the Target: S? If S = self, then that code is checking whether Farengar has joined the college rather than whether the player has.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:23 am

Ok, if you folks really want RP, unfortunately it's never going to be accomplished by scripting. Yes, some games are better than others, but unless you have live people behind the RP reacting to changing events, it just isn't going to happen. That's why I liked the Neverwinter nights games so much. Live DMs reacting to character driven quests. Skyrim is nice, but I never expected it to replace live RP.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:52 pm

What's the Target: S? If S = self, then that code is checking whether Farengar has joined the college rather than whether the player has.

From wiki I found this info.

Subject: The actor owning the object. In the case of dialogue, it's whoever is saying it. In the case of quest targets, it's the player.
Target: For dialogue, this is the actor being spoken to. For Packages, it's the actor/object specified as the target.

S is subject.

So does it need to be T then?

Here is the plugin I created that changes this data if anyone wants to test it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?dah5izs80c348zs

Nope, I tested it myself and he is still saying the aptitude line.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:45 pm

It's hard to believe that they doubled the amount of dialogue from Oblivion, yet managed to produce almost nothing interesting to listen to. Even Delphine, Esbern, and Arngeir are dull and lacking any notable dialogue. Paarthurnax was probably the only person I enjoyed listening to.

I love the job Bethesda does with world design. They're probably the best in the business at it. But man did they svck with writing in this one. They've never been great at it, but it was much better in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. Hopefully the expansions can save some face for Bethesda; I preferred the writing in Tribunal, Bloodmoon, KotN, Shivering Isles, The Pitt, and Point Lookout to their respective vanilla games.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:20 pm

It's hard to believe that they doubled the amount of dialogue from Oblivion, yet managed to produce almost nothing interesting to listen to. Even Delphine, Esbern, and Arngeir are dull and lacking any notable dialogue. Paarthurnax was probably the only person I enjoyed listening to.

I love the job Bethesda does with world design. They're probably the best in the business at it. But man did they svck with writing in this one. They've never been great at it, but it was much better in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. Hopefully the expansions can save some face for Bethesda; I preferred the writing in Tribunal, Bloodmoon, KotN, Shivering Isles, The Pitt, and Point Lookout to their respective vanilla games.

They need to kidnap the Obsidian people and get them to write quests/dialogs for some DLCs.
Now that I think about it, they need to kidnap them and keep them permanently.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:07 pm

They need to kidnap the Obsidian people and get them to write quests/dialogs for some DLCs.
Now that I think about it, they need to kidnap them and keep them permanently.

Yes, but they also need to stay away from Obsidian's world designers. They've developed some of the worst-designed games I've ever played. Their writers bail them out each and every game it seems.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 6:55 pm

What's the Target: S? If S = self, then that code is checking whether Farengar has joined the college rather than whether the player has.

This should fix it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?1i5azco7415mjnt

I think you might be right. Subject isn't pointing player. Target isn't working either probably because this line is being spoken outside of regular dialog(it is a goodbye), so the game probably thinks it is being spoken into void: There is no target. Probably I am wrong in these assumptions. :tongue:

Luckily there was a direct getPCfaction function so I used it instead. Now he mumbles some other stuff.

One down, hundreds to go! Yeah, no.

PS. OK, one more.

http://www.mediafire.com/?zlppkmav7p3lap9
(not tested but should work)
Fixes "Is that fur... coming out of your ears?" line to Khajiits nonetheless.

Now, they shouldn't say that if you have a Khajiit character.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:53 pm

Meh, I have no problems with rp'ing Skyrim, I do it all the time.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 1:10 pm

Yes, but they also need to stay away from Obsidian's world designers. They've developed some of the worst-designed games I've ever played. Their writers bail them out each and every game it seems.

Agreed.

I so hope Beth gives one of the DLCs to Obsidian. You know that’s the only chance we would have of seeing the Ohmes and other lore things that Beth loves to write about but never delivers on.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 12:26 pm

Would it have been that hard to replace some text lines.

eg "You know, if you've got the aptitude, you should join the mages college in Winterhold" becomes "So you followed my advise and joined the mages in Winterhold"

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 3:43 pm

I will repeat my question.... How can you possibly RP in Skyrim?

In any given situation, you ask yourself what your character would do, and then you do it. Alternatively, you can do whatever you want to do, just make sure that it isn't outside of your character's character.

If a bug affects your ability to respond appropriately to a situation, and your imagination can't work around it, then pick whichever option is least distasteful and walk away. Go interact with the numerous other things in Skyrim that aren't broken. Bugs aren't meant to happen, so you can dismiss them as things that never happened.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:18 am

For an example I went to whiterun to sell some full soul gems and to buy empty ones from Farengar Secret-Fire and mind you that I became the archmage, and I am wearing the gear. Right after the transaction He tells me "You know, if you've got the aptitude, you should join the mages college in winterhold... WTF! Does he even know what the Archmages gear looks like?

Compare this to Oblivion. In OB if you run around in the Grey Cowl, everybody recognizes it and comments on you being the Grey Fox. The guard dialogue is definitely the funniest and most appropriate.

I wonder why we took a step back in this area, sequels are supposed to improve upon what cane before.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:58 am

I am always too busy to be taking much notice of them but I see your point. I don't know how difficult it is to create these aspects, you know for game developers, maybe this is really tough for them to master else I am sure they would have.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 9:09 pm

I am always too busy to be taking much notice of them but I see your point. I don't know how difficult it is to create these aspects, you know for game developers, maybe this is really tough for them to master else I am sure they would have.

There is actually some evidence that they tried and did 95% of the work in some cases. Unfortunately that missing 5% renders everything useless. There was an example given a several posts back where there was literally one letter that needed to be changed to make an NPC more responsive all the work was done but…

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:26 pm

I was wondering the exact opposite question. How can you RP in any other game that came out in 2011?

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:33 am

lol I find it hilarious how some people will defend the game to the death and refuse to acknowledge its downsides. It was the same way with DA2 which is about 1000x more surprising. Still I find it surprising that game developers often handle criticism much better than ~~fanb…~~ certain players. Fact is the game refuses to respond to your actions in anyway which is weird considering how Beth made FO3 and had FONV to learn from. I guess they were a little afraid of going into that direction because of a certain group of people who would come out of the woodwork day one and say how Skyrim is just like FONV with swords.

It has nothing to do with refusing to acknowledge the downsides of Skyrim.
It has everything to do with realizing this is not Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, Dragon Age, Fable, Fallout, Diablo, WoW, etc. It's not any of those games, never will be, wasn't intended to be, and shouldn't be.

Skyrim is a very very good game in it's own right.
If people can't accept that and want to spend a bunch of time and effort whining and griping, it's their loss.

Look at Skyrim and enjoy it for what it is.
Don't spend all your time complaining about what it isn't.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 3:13 pm

I am always too busy to be taking much notice of them but I see your point. I don't know how difficult it is to create these aspects, you know for game developers, maybe this is really tough for them to master else I am sure they would have.

It can't be that hard because they did it in oblivion. Oblivion npcs had plenty of dumb conversations but they also acknowledged the player appropriately, spoke of changes in the world and player accomplishments and adjusted everything based on their personal like or dislike towards the player. So not only is it possible but Bethesda themselves have done it before.

Not really sure why they did away with the AI that controlled the generated conversations in OB. It sometimes came up with some wacky things but overall it was good and with some work could have been great.

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:31 pm

Ironically enough Planet Spengo is ruled by Emperor Todd. :ermm:

Remember that scene from the movie with the, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCeD2gF9jUo Exactly how your followers still behave.

Glad that someone on this forum seen the movie. I see no difference between Emperor Todd and Emperor Titus Mede II. Both are pretty much idiots, and yes our followers pretty much behaves like that... Too bad theirs no light grenades in skyrim so you can order your follower to pick it up.